Could your website be hacked?

Security breaches are a regular feature of the news these days, but if you feel that you are safe because your business is too small to be the target of such an attack, you need to think again. Read on to find out what to look for and how to protect yourself.

No company is safe

According to the Better Business Bureau, one in five small businesses has been the victim of some form of cyberattack. In many cases, the companies themselves do not realize that they have been hacked because there are no signs. Rather than being the ultimate target, the hackers use the small company to penetrate and work their way up the supply chain to a far larger company.

Invisible threat

Some websites are targeted by what are known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in which huge amounts of web traffic are directed at a server causing it to collapse. When this happens, you know immediately because your website will be knocked offline. This can be especially concerning if you are an e-commerce site and such an attack comes at a crucial time.

However, it is also possible for your site to be hacked without you being aware of it. Your pages may look completely, but they may have been infected with harmful code that embeds itself onto any computer logging onto the site and then steals passwords or other login details.

Insiders

Security breaches from hackers and other malicious attackers are a constant threat, but many companies find themselves being targeted by disgruntled employees. The fact that such employees will have intimate knowledge of the way a company works makes it far easier for them to strike effectively.

Be sure that your security systems are robust enough to ensure any former employees can no longer gain access to your systems. This is especially important if you have a policy in which employees are able to use their own personal devices to connect to the company servers.

Plan for disaster

A key part of your defensive strategy should be to ensure that all of your most important data is properly backed-up. Doing so will not only protect you in the event of a breach but also from problems that could be caused by the failure of a key piece of equipment. The same philosophy should also be applied to your personal devices. If, like many people, your digital life is spread across a series of tablets, phones and computers, you risk losing precious documents, files and photographs, not to mention personal information, should a key device fail or be stolen.

A number of solutions are available on the market, but if you want to be sure your data will be truly secure, it’s a good idea to make use of the services of a company such as Secure Backup which uses state-of-the-art propriety technology to safeguard your files and important information.

Using such a company also provides a further level of protection in the event of a natural disaster, such as a fire or flood at your office, which case both the original data and the back-ups could be destroyed.